Not relevant

I attended an event at work earlier this week that highlighted that more than 50 percent of our workforce had been at my company less than a year. Translate that to 50 percent of our workforce are 30 or younger.

The event included a slide show on screens in the meeting space showing photos of staff at work. I wasn't in a single photo and I've been working there 21 years. 

I was overwhelmed by the feeling that not only had I become invisible as I'd aged, but now I wasn't relevant.

Not that I've felt relevant for some time now. It creeps over you in phases.  Though it isn't as obvious as becoming invisible. I started fading into the background when I turned 40. I was transparent when I turned 50. And I became completely invisible when I turned 60.

I still felt relevant at 40 because it was still possible to bridge the gap between generations and have common popular points of reference. This was due in a large part to not having much contact with  Millennials at the time since most of them were in grade school

Even when I turned 50 I felt more relevant than I do now, though more via my writing than in person. My hair had pretty much all turned gray by the time I turned 50. And it was that gray hair that made me transparent and less relevant to the world when I met people in person.

The milestone of turning 60 is the game changer both online and in the real world. Since I have made no secret of how old I am in my blog, I have sensed that my relevancy to the larger demographic that uses the Web has diminished exponentially.


I suppose I could lie about my age. I could curb my obsession with Photoshopping my face or things or just use younger photos of myself like people do on dating sites. I could write about trending things and drop the names of popular entertainers and musicians that Millennials listen to. But that would be the virtual equivalent to having a senior bro bun, wearing an earring and trying to get my garage band back together (not that I was ever in a garage band).

Higher learning

Posting about teaching my children how to start and tend a fire started me thinking about all of the things I learned more by doing then by having someone show me how to do them. I suppose I learned some of them by watching my parents do them. But many things I've done in my life, I had to figure them out by reading books, asking people or just doing.

Of course now there is the Internet and YouTube how to videos up the yin yang (and I'm not referring to the symbol).

Unless you have lots of money to pay other people to do things (which I don't), owning a house forces you to learn lots of things (many the hard way) about maintenance. When I bought my first house it was a VA repo that was structurally fine, but cosmetically beat to hell. I moved in highly enthusiastic about DIY projects.

Smoke gets in my eyes

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I can not hide
Oh, so I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke gets in your eyes

 --Smoke gets in your eyes

Fourth of July came and went and I didn't even light a sparkler. Oh, I helped my kids pull the strings on a few poppers that were hardly worth the effort. You pull the string and you hear a slight pop and some pitiful streamers shoot out on the lawn to be cleaned up the next morning. Nothing like the satisfying bang of a firecracker used to bring in my youth. Of course, the odds of losing a finger or two have gone down as well.

But I did build a fire in my outdoor portable fireplace that had been rusting in the backyard since last year. I used a wire brush and some flame resistant black spray paint to get rid of the rust in preparation for the Fourth. It has become a tradition to build a fire and roast marshmallows for smores on the Fourth while we wait for the fireworks to begin at an athletic field near our house.

The city allows those unsafe and insane fireworks because they are set off by professionals who know what they are doing. If I could just strategically cut down two of the neighbors trees, we'd have a pretty darned good view of the fireworks from our back deck. As it is, we can just make out the sky rockets over the tips of the trees.  But it beats fighting the hordes of people who go to the athletic field to get a close up look at the fireworks.

But back to the fire. Unlike the campfire at our recent camping adventure, I don't have bundles of expensive wood to stoke the fire. I use accumulated scrap lumber and tree branches that I've pruned over the years. This year's fire was fed by what was left of a grape arbor I'd torn down a few months ago. I couldn't use any of the recent cut alder wood because it was still too green to burn properly. Wood, like wine, needs to age.

Points of views

After discovering the Internet works of  Ze Frank I have binge watched all of his True Facts videos and many of his A show by Ze Frank spots. And I have to say I feel late to the party. In many ways the guy is a comic genius and I missed his work for years.

And he stopped creating the A show spots about five years ago.  And he seems to have gone from the president of Buzzfeed motion pictures to the chief research and development officer and doesn't appear to have produced anything public facing for several years.  This has apparently caused some agitation amongst his fan base.

I know this only by Googling him to find out about his work. So I don't want anyone to think I am a stalker or anything. I was just curious about someone who could create such great laugh out loud stuff as True Facts about Morgan Freeman (with millions of views).

But you don't have to be a stalker to find out about Ze Frank. He pretty much bares what is going on in his head in his The Show and A Show series. And he has done several TED talks talking about his life and career.

Top of the world

I wished I was smarter
I wished I was stronger
I wished I loved Jesus
The way my wife does
I wish it had been easier
Instead of any longer
I wished I could have stood where you would have been proud
But that won't happen now
That won't happen now 

There's a whole lot of singing that's never gonna be heard
Disappearing everyday without so much as a word somehow
Think I broke the wings off that little song bird
She's never gonna fly to the top of the world right now
Top of the world 

--Patty Griffin, Top of the world

Top of the world is one of my favorite Dixie Chicks song. It was written by Patty Griffin who is also one of my favorite artists.  Top of the world is one of those songs that kind of tears at my gut and makes me tear up when I try singing along.

I stumbled onto the lyrics and chords for Top of the world last week and began playing it on my guitar. Again, I could barely get through it without choking up. For some reason it stirs up strong emotions in me.

Maybe it's because it is obviously a song of great regret. And you can't get to middle age without your fair share of regret.

Though I guess I would technically only be classified as middle aged if I was going to live to 120.  But the Oxford English Dictionary defines middle aged as being between 45 and 65.  I guess I'm more three-quarter aged. So I have a quarter more regret than the rest of the middle-aged people.

The blog is a jar

I started feeling inadequate the other day because Ze Frank, my new Internet hero, has thousands of followers, millions of views, 10s of thousands likes and has actually been asked to give TED talks.

After 14 years of blogging, the best I can do is get 34 people to follow me.

But then I rationalize and rehash the reasons why I have achieved no following or viral fame. Ze Frank does what he does for a living and has resources to promote his videos and projects. I blog as a hobby. I put absolutely no resources into promoting it other than free promotions offered me by Facebook in hopes that I'll then be lured into actually using my own money to promote my blog. I've tried using Twitter and Instagram to promote the blog, but again, I don't do paid promotion.

But why should I promote my blog? I don't sell anything. I've dabbled with Google ads and Amazon ads on my site, but my traffic is so pitifully low there is nothing to attract advertisers or to generate ad revenue.

Lost in the wood

I think I have a bad case of wood karma.  A few posts back I wrote about me going all postal on a downed tree with a new chain saw. And I alluded to a checkered past I've had dealing with sketchy tree services and wood.

But back to my latest encounter with a chain saw. I stacked all of the wood I'd cut up next to my fence but near the sidewalk that abuts the street. My plan was to eventually haul it into my yard, stack it and use it for our outdoor fire pit.

So yesterday my wife tells me that she'd got a call from a friend of ours who happens to be a local police officer. She'd been driving past our home on the way to work and spotted some guy starting to load the wood I'd cut into his vehicle. She stopped, got out of her car wearing her police uniform and proceeded to lecture the guy about taking things out of other people's yard without their permission. I believe he mumbled something to her about thinking it was free to take because it was just sitting there. Fortunately I hadn't left my chain saw just sitting there or using his logic, someone would have assumed it was up for grabs, too.

Okay, I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. On one hand, I can't believe the audacity of someone to just go on someone's property and assuming it was okay to take wood from a pile. On the other hand, I don't really have a wood burning fireplace and it will likely take me years of burning wood in my outdoor fire pit to get rid of the wood. So it wouldn't have been the end of the world to have the guy haul away the wood.

The true irony is that years ago when I'd had a couple of trees cut down in my yard, it took me ages to find some one who would take the wood without charging me a fortune to haul it away. I guess the trick is to leave it close to the road and pretend you don't want anyone to have it.

Wabi-Sabi you?

"In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is 'imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete'".
--Wikipedia

I kind of wished I'd know about wabi-sabi when I was in my 7th grade pottery class. Then I could have rationalized all of those lopsided pots and cups as being created in the "wabi-sabi" style. But if someone came up to me and asked me what I thought about wabi-sabi back then, I would probably have thought they were talking about the green horseradish paste you put on sushi. Not that you could find sushi in Boise when I was in 7th grade.

Now that I know that wabi-sabi isn't something you smear on sushi, I'm really digging the concept that what makes something truly perfect is its imperfections. The wabi-sabi aesthetic also embraces aging of an object as it is used and shows signs of wear and tear. My 60-year-old self is totally into that. 

Wabi-sabi values simplicity versus the intricate. It has roots in the monastic Buddhist traditions of starkness and lack of posessions. That part I have a bit of trouble with. I have always liked an abundance of stuff around me. I attract clutter and trinkets. A bare wall to me is an unpainted canvas dying for a portrait of dogs playing poker.

So maybe I am more of a Wabi-Kitsch kind of person. Though some may think I am simply a hoarder. I prefer to think that there is a method to my cluttered madness.

Clutter aside, I embrace the wabi-sabi concept that something incomplete is beautiful. I think of it as being like a jig saw puzzle. The joy in it is the process of completing the puzzle, not the completed puzzle (which is usually something boring like the image of a flower garden).

But wabi-sabi is also about impermanence. A flower blooms, wilts, decays and dies, becoming compost that nurtures future flowers.

I think of Dizgraceland as being very wabi-sabi. I'll be the first one to admit it isn't great literature (well maybe not the first one to point it out, though). So it is imperfect. It resides in the cloud on blogger.com. So god knows how long it will reside in the digital ether. So it is impermanent. And nothing is more open ended and therefor incomplete, than a blog.

Dizgraceland epitomizes wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is art. Therefore Dizgraceland is art.

I wonder if the wabi-sabi aesthetic also includes being self-serving.  Because then I am really knocking it out of the park.

That was then, this is now

I was inspired by Internet performance artist Ze Frank's book, Young Me, Now Me: Identical Photos, Different Decades to create the above photo. The young me on the left was five years old. The photo strip was taken by a product demonstrator in Skaggs Drug Store in downtown Boise in 1963. It was an early Polaroid Camera that produced the photo on the spot. 

The old me on the right was produced with my iPhone and a bit of Photoshop 55 years later. Other than the glasses, beard, gray hair, a few more chins and a bigger head, I don't think I've changed much. My ears don't stick out as much, though they have gotten a bit longer.

I discovered Ze Frank by watching some of his True Facts videos on Facebook and then YouTube. At first I thought they were serious documentary films about various obscure animals. But I quickly discovered that Frank is a comic genius and the videos are full of quirky commentary that is laugh out loud funny. 

Frank has done many Web projects that showcase his own hilarious brand of humor. He has also appeared on several TED talks.  He is currently the chief of research and development for BuzzFeed. 

From what I've seen of Frank's work, he has a remarkably similar sense of humor and has produced many projects that remind me of my journey with Dizgraceland and the Web. For example, I Photoshopped my face on an echidna back in 2007.  Frank featured an echidna in one of his True Facts videos about Pangolins. And though I haven't been a speaker on a TED talks, I do have a brother Ted. We just don't talk much.

I think the main difference between Frank and I is that he is  successful. Oh and  he has thousands of followers...okay maybe more than a million follow True Faces. About 56,000 follow him on Facebook. 

At last count 29 people follow my blog and a whopping 34 follow Dizgraceland on Facebook. But I've only been blogging 14 years. I'm thinking that gap between Frank's huge following and mine is closing...slowly...very slowly.

Regardless, I greatly admire Frank's work and happy that he has realized my dream of making people laugh at his work on the Web...and I mean laugh because it is funny, ha, ha, not laugh AT his work. 

I do wonder what kind of name Ze is though.

Not that there is anything wrong with it.

Sticking out

Okay, I've made the point in my last post that  I pretty much blend into the scenery. So I figured I probably should give "sticking out" some attention just to be fair.

Again, it's not that I want to stick out. I'm a card carrying introvert. Well technically my card says, Marketing Director, but trust me, I am by definition, an introvert.

Definition of introvert
1 : something (such as the retractile proboscis of some worms) that is or can be drawn in especially by invagination
2 : one whose personality is characterized by introversion; especially : a reserved or shy person who enjoys spending time alone 

Okay, I don't have a retractile proboscis, so I am by the second definition above, an introvert. Though I wouldn't really characterize myself as shy, but I do like spending time alone. I hate crowds, meetings, flying coach on airplanes, standing in lines, parades, concerts, fairs, festivals, popular movies, or anything else that puts me in proximity to lots of people.

I'm not particularly fond of meeting new people, small talk, riding public transit or elevators, either. And I believe I've expressed a few times, my fear of those people who hand out samples in grocery stores.

I realize this makes me seem like a major whack job.

Blending in

I will be the first one to admit that there is nothing striking about my physical presence. I'm not young or particularly good looking. Heredity has not given me an athletic build either. I'm not tall. I'm not short. I'm not a big man nor a small one.

If you walked into a room full of people, you would very likely not notice me. I doubt any of the people who I commute with on a regular basis via the train would be able to tell you I am a regular commuter.

It is not my intent to just blend in, but I do. I guess if the truth were told, I wouldn't want to stick out. I don't particularly like to draw attention to myself. I never have.

I do fancy myself as being a writer. And if I were to garner any attention to myself I would want it to be for my writing. If people like your writing, they don't care what you look like. I imagine if I were a famous writer, I would take the same path as J.D. Salinger or other reclusive authors. I can tell you that you wouldn't catch me at a bookstore doing any readings of my latest work. For one, I think my work is best read silently to one's self.

I also think it is better to create a sense of mystery about yourself if you are a writer. Years ago I wrote about meeting one of my favorite authors (at least back then) Mark Helprin at a book signing. I'd built him up in my mind as being this mystical figure imparting wisdom to his followers. I left the book signing disillusioned. I don't think I've read any of his books since.

A lot of the times when I'm writing I halfway pretend I'm talking (writing) to a friend who actually enjoys my company and my stories. That used to be easier when I had a larger group of people who commented on what I'd written. These days it feels more like I'm sitting in a room muttering to myself.

Chain saw

I spent about six hours on Sunday using a chain saw to cut up half an Alder tree that split in half and fell on the slope in my backyard.  It wasn't pretty.

This was not my first venture into the realm of the lumber jack. About 13 years ago I blogged about my saga with having a tree service from hell cut down two trees in my back yard and the months I spent trying to get rid of the wood. That involved a great deal of splitting wood, but no chain saw.

I've tried on various occasions to describe the wild slope of property that is my backyard. Although it is cool to have half a stream (it flows into a very unpicturesque culvert half way across my property line) flow at the foot of the slope it provides the environment for wild plants and trees attracted to the water supply. This is not Christopher Robin's idyllic half acre wood.  We are talking red alder trees, some fir trees, a few cedar and lots of Rhododendrons.

And of course pervasive ivy, blackberry vines, horse tails, morning glory and monster weeds. The ivy has grown up the trunks of many of the alder trees. I believe that is the reason the particular tree that had split in two and fallen across my ancient fence. It had been overcome by ivy and fallen apart.

Normally, I would have left the fallen tree alone. But a good part of it had, as I said, fallen across my fence and was sticking out on the sidewalk. I still would have ignored it if I didn't worry that someone would complain to the city and I would have been ordered to do something about it like pay a tree service to remove it.

I don't like or trust tree services after my run in with them over a decade ago. I also don't want to pay one a fortune to do what I am perfectly capable of doing. So I did the sensible thing and ordered an electric chain saw on Amazon.

No write turns

It gets harder and harder to find a play on words that is unique or at least hasn't been used by umpteen other people. The write stuff, write on, two wrongs don't make a write and divine write were all used to death. So I had to settle for "No write turns." It only showed up in some posts about typos.

Damn you Google!

Not that "No write turns" makes any sense. But at least it is now uniquely my play on words. I suppose it could have some political ramifications as in don't turn politically right when you write.

Yeah, that's what I was going for.

My son is quickly learning the lesson about the shortage on original thought, too. Yesterday he was excited because he thought he came up with the phrase "Are you kitten me?" Then we Googled it and found there were thousands of uses of the phrase including on t-shirts and coffee mugs. They even took it to the next level with "Are you kitten me, right meow?"

Oh well, it is better to crush his creative spirit at a young age than to have him get to my age and realize the best you can come up with is "No write turns." I've had my share of heartbreaks with word play, mind you. My kids were playing at a school playground a few weeks ago and were climbing on the monkey bars when I had this cool idea for a bar called the Monkey Bar.

Hundreds already exist, including photos of monkeys drinking at a bar.

Losing self-eh-steam

 I wrote her off for the tenth time today
And practiced all the things I would say
But she came over I lost my nerve
I took her back and made her dessert  

Now I know I'm being used
That's okay because I like the abuse
I know she's playing with me
That's okay 'cause I've got no self-esteem 

Self Esteem,  The Offspring

I watched a short video on Facebook this morning while waiting for my train. It was on a channel called Obsessions that is produced by the New Yorker.  This episode was titled Selfies, Millennials, and Narcissism. The premise was that the self-esteem movement of the 90s has led to a generation of depressed narcissists. 

Apparently the problem began when we started telling our kids (and ourselves) that they were special and could accomplish anything. And low and behold when our kids (and ourselves) discover that that may not be the case, they (or we) become despondent.

Social media has exacerbated this problem by making people think that everyone else is having a better time than they are. And the plethora of carefully staged and filtered selfies is further distorting people's self-image issues. 

Though I would argue this is not a new problem. When I was growing up it was the fact that everyone in magazines, on television and in the movies were better looking and in better shape than I was. This was actualized by the fact that elite in my schools were always jocks and cheerleaders, elevated in social status because of their looks and physical abilities.

The last movie star

Blogger's note: I wrote this post about Burt Reynolds' last movie back in June. I am glad that he had an opportunity to make it before he died on September 6, 2018. RIP Burt!

I stumbled upon a film on Amazon Prime called The Last Movie Star starring an 82-year old Burt Reynolds essentially playing himself as an 82-year old former film star faded into obscurity. Reynolds character is invited to an independent film festival in Nashville to receive a lifetime achievement award. Upon arriving at the festival and being put up in an Econo-Lodge he discovers that the film festival takes place in a bar and the organizers are two Millennials who really just liked his old films.

The film is interspersed with clips from Burt Reynolds' actual films like Smokey and the Bandit and Deliverance. It was eerie seeing the 82-year-old Reynolds next to his 40-something self on the big screen. Once again I was struck at how much harder it must be for movie stars to face aging while records of their young, attractive selves are out their rubbing their lost youth in their faces.

Critics were not overly kind to the film, using phrases like "overly sentimental" and "strikes a note of banality" in their reviews. I find that ironic. I imagine those reviews were written by people who have yet to face aging. Because aging is fraught with sentimentality and banality. I'd like to revisit those critics when they are shuffling alone in their walkers lost in their own banal existences and getting all misty eyed about when they were once a film critic.

Although, other than Siskel and Ebert I couldn't even tell you the name of another critic. Because they are like ticks feeding on the carcases of the famous.

Weary bones

I thought about reprising my post about one of my favorite songs of late (Wolves by Down Like Silver,) but no one seemed to pay much attention to that post (which is a strong indication that no one cares what I listen to on Pandora...though it is a great song). But the songs I've been drawn to of late seem to indicate that I'm more aware than normal that my bones are weary.

I will note here that there is an indie alternative folk trio from Longmont, Colorado called "Weary Bones." But I am referring to my actual weary bones both literally and figuratively. The weary bones in my hands I attribute to the amount of yard work I've done in the past few weeks. The weary bones in my legs and feet I attribute to the 5k run I did with my daughter last Saturday that I didn't know I was going to participate in until the morning of the race (long story).

The general, overall weary bones I'm experiencing I attribute to aging. And when I stepped off the elliptical machine this afternoon it dawned on me that that aspect of my life isn't going to change. It's where the trite old saying, "I ain't getting no younger" comes from.

I don't know why that should be such an epiphany. We're born. We get older. We die. It's a given. Yet we, or at least I, hold out hope that I'll be the exception to the rule. That I'll wake up one day and my bones won't be weary. My hair will be brown again and my face will match the mental image I'm staring out through.

Maybe that is where the myth of heaven comes from. You imagine that when your spirit leaves your body you glide into the light and are reunited with all of your friends and family who passed before you. I guess I just have always fantasized that I wouldn't have to wait until I died.

Minifigure of speech

I think having a Lego minifigure of myself would be kind of cool. And I imagine you could pay to have one made, but it wouldn't be the same as actually being a bonafide minifigure. Because it isn't really an authentic minfigure unless Lego makes a shitload of them and people want to collect it.

So I'm just putting it out there to Lego and the universe that I would make a pretty bitching grumpy old man minifigure. I would be the perfect addition to your Lego town. My minifigure would be yelling at kids to get off his lawn or yelling at the neighbors to stop setting off fireworks or he would call the police.

If my father had had a minifigure, his would have been yelling at the neighbors not to race up and down the alley on their motorcycle. That was his grumpy old many gig. I don't have an alley so I don't yell at motorcycles too much.

But I suppose there really wouldn't be much of a market for a grumpy old man minifigure that looks like me. I seriously doubt that even my kids would want one. They see me all the time anyway and think minifigures only exist for superheros and famous people.

The other day my daughter was writing out a list of famous people like Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain. I am not sure why she was making a list of famous people. Anyway, I asked her if I was on the list and she told me no, because I wasn't famous. My son pretty much agreed.

So you see my kids  wouldn't see the point in a minifigure of me.

But I still think it would be cool.

What's in a name?

I was playing Russian Roulette with movies on Netflix while working out and watched a documentary called The Strange Name Movie. Here's Netflix's description of it:

"Ordinary people with extraordinary names open up about the ridicule, judgment and rewards that come with having an attention-grabbing moniker. What's in a name? Plenty, especially for the likes of Al Dente, Stuart Putz, Jeanine Cobbledick and Linda Slutsky."

I thought this would be a stretch to create a documentary about, but I'll be damned if all 52 minutes of it wasn't highly entertaining. Maybe it is because I have a sophomoric sense of humor and love the fact that someone would name their kid Tim Burr, Donald Duck (Senior, Junior and the Third) or Ronald McDonald.

There was also a guy named Paul McCartney who married a woman named Linda. And there was Asian American gentleman named Donald Sutherland who enjoyed the disappointed looks on hostesses faces when he made a reservation at a restaurant and they were anticipating Donald Sutherland the actor. There was also a young man named Bond, James Bond.

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story

But when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame, who tells your story?  

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,  Lin-Manuel Miranda

Good question. I suppose I do. Oh, not after I'm gone. But now, through this blog, in bits and pieces. My story is woven in and out of the posts. You can find little tidbits of my life and thoughts.

Not that that is why I started blogging. It just started evolving that way. Because, if nothing else, I think I am a pretty good storyteller. And since I am not famous and not constantly shadowed by the press looking for trivia about my life, it falls to me to tell my story. But for the life of me though, I don't know why anyone cares about the lives of famous people anyway.

I've written before about wishing that I had more of my parent's stories. My father died before I thought to ask him what his story was. And I waited too long to ask my mother. By the time I did, much of it had faded from her mind.

My children will at least have my blog. For what that is worth. They may not care. I occasionally try and tell them what it was like for me growing up or at various stages in my life. But I think it is the nature of youth not to hear such stories. At least when I'm gone, and if they want to know, this blog will be there...or somewhere...for them to find out.

Not my own private Idaho

Through an odd twist of fate, I have over the years returned to the place I was born on business. When my mother was still alive, it entailed carving out time to visit her and taking her out for at least one dinner. In the years since she died, I haven't had the opportunity much to go back to Boise on business. I was pulled to other places like Los Angeles or Burbank to produce video ads.

But another opportunity came up and I just returned from a few days and nights in Boise shooting some video for a new ad campaign. The shoot took me into parts of Boise that are charming and give one the impression that the entire city is like that. But it was nothing like the parts of the city I grew up in. I tried explaining this to the people I was with, but they essentially just shrugged.

It is difficult to explain that, despite the changes, Boise will always be haunted by the specter of growing up there. Being a tourist there is one thing. But living there is another. Once you get out of the downtown and the higher income neighborhoods, you're left with strip malls and tract homes from the 50s. It is a flat, sprawling place.

And I wouldn't say I had a bad childhood. Nor did I have more than my fair share of teen-aged angst. I just felt compelled in my early 20s to run as far from the place as I could get knowing I'd be mired there unless I did.

Now granted, I did enjoy the slower pace on this trip. Seattle has become a hectic city. It is fraught with crowds, traffic,  and homelessness. It is expensive to live here. So the thought did occur to me, "What if..." But then I remind myself that Boise is landlocked and conservative. I don't want my children growing up there.

But it is a nice place to visit.